Abstract
The study explores the efficiency of microcredit as a strategy for poverty reduction especially among women. The argument is that, over the years, state led ‗top-down‘ models have yielded little results hence the presumption that ‗bottom-up‘ people centered strategies like microcredit would help the poor out of poverty. This appears to have been the thinking among feminist theories that empowerment through income generating activities could be a key in achieving the millennium goals of halving poverty by 2015.
Guided by a notion that the poor are not passive but could be active agents of change, I use a credit investment model to explain how microcredit could help transform the vicious cycle of poverty into a virtuous cycle. The question is; has microcredit really transform beneficiaries‘ lives over the years? Nonetheless, impact assessment studies over the years seem to challenge the normative debate that has come to frame microcredit programs. It is noted that, in the context of SAPs, the empowering approach to poverty reduction through microcredit has more or less come to advance and legitimize neoliberal reforms. Thus, in certain cases, the aim is to use microcredit as a way of responding quickly to the vulnerabilities of surplus labor in growing informal sectors during and after adjustment process.
Nevertheless, based on the experiences of the beneficiaries, it appears that the impact of microcredit has been mixed. Certain beneficiaries are successful, others partially successful and some have failed to use the loans to improve their lives. Though microcredit has its challenges, it can be noted that when the right mechanisms and structure are put in place and implemented vigilantly, it could serve as a catalyst to get people out of poverty. Yet, it is prudent to view microcredit as a means to an end and not an end in itself.